Some questions about Roti an preservatives

Hi, Zeni, and welcome.

If you're making the roti at home and freezing it, there's no need to add preservatives! Those things are added to commercial products, especially ones that stay out on the shelf, to extend their life. But they do not improve the quality one little bit.

Just wrap the roti well before freezing to protect them from drying out. And if you wrap them individually, then you can just pull out as many as you need at a time.

Leavening agents and preservatives are two different animals, um, I mean chemicals. The baking powder will help the roti puff, but I'm not sure it does anything to help it keep longer. In fact, since some baking powders start working as soon as they're mixed with liquid, some of the leavening effect might actually be lost, but adding preservatives won't help that. What you might want to do, that will make it even more convenient later, is to cook off the roti before freezing them, to get the full effect of the baking powder. Maybe undercook them a little. Then wrap well and freeze, and when you reheat them, they'll finish cooking and be almost as good as fresh.

As for your question about timing: you can divide the dough into balls right after you knead it. But then you do want to wait at least an hour before you try to roll them out. Overnight is fine, just make sure the dough balls are well wrapped so they don't dry out. The reason to wait is that when you mix flour and water, you produce a stretchy protein (gluten), that needs to relax before you can roll the dough. If you try to roll out the dough right away, the elastic stuff will snap back and make it harder to roll.

Hope this helps!

BTW: are these plain roti, or do you stuff them with peas?

 

I will go to the indian stores and see what they do as they sell premade rotis and prathas from a company here in florida.

this is an interesting thread.

definitely experiment with different ideas until you find what works....


do you own a tawa? (silly question)

 

Ah. I'm sure you are right about there being a market for good-quality homemade-style roti. An Indian friend who lives near Washington, DC has written a delightful essay about buying paratha in her book, Modern Spice.

If people are used to making roti fresh several times a day, maybe I'm wrong but I have a feeling that it will be hard to get them to buy a version that can sit on the shelf for days and days. So I still think it would not be good to add preservatives. Which means that the roti would have to be sold refrigerated or frozen and have a limited life.

But if you want to be the one to bring it to market, you really should try making it yourself first, don't you think? And while you are perfecting the recipe you want to use, there is a great deal of research you need to do about health and licensing regulations that would apply, financing and running a business, and so much more. If there is a business college near you, maybe they can offer advice. Also, if there is a bank or organization that does microfinancing, it would be good to talk to them.

Starting a food business can be very difficult, and it takes a lot of time, money, and effort to do it right. I don't want to discourage you, but it takes much more than just a good idea that fills a need.

 

i used to want an international roti or just bread shop.

we would feature rotis both pratha ifluenced, chapati, dosai, bhatoora, influenced and luchi/puri and whatever else.

mainly it would feature what i have experienced outside of india, and i doubt it would even cater much to continental indian cookingf except for some classics like bhatooras with channa which are redone in trinidad as doubles anyway.... except the indian channa can be more complex than the simplified but tasty trini standard...

we would have the thailand banana and/or coconut cream filled rotis, rotis from kenya,uganda, ghana, and tanzania along with representative sauces, curries, etc... , prathas from nepal and tibet, peppr rotis, sada roti with fry aloo, aloo puri, dal puri, doubles (bara with channa), and other trin breads along with trini curries, chutneys and afro/hindi preperations,.... like spiced pumpkin, goat, stew beef, chicken curry, curry mango and callaloo.


also want to have a ncie african goat preperation and a jamaiocan goat preperation and an indian one, just for fun....

lots of raitas, chutneys, tamarind sauces, pickles and hot pepper condiments to go with it

and a nice pot of dal always ready!

finally we would have aloo pies and phulouries and saheena also from trinidad, and plenty of interesting trinidad, indian or english sweets to top everything off

a bake and shark sandwich


and to showcase a european and jewish flat bread i would want the potato pancake lefse, and maybe latkas too since these potato pancakes are TREMENDOUSLY different!

then soem good old austrian dumplings of different varieties, sweet and savory lones to acompany a good stew, or roast preperation....


silly, whimsical and complicated, but i always liked doughs!!!

 

plz any one tell me what preservative i can used to increased the shelf life of chapati 8 to 9 days / any procedure